handmade paper

I’ve kept sketchbooks for many years – and I have drawn dogs a lot. I sketch and draw in ink almost every day. Some time ago my wife Judy saw some of my dog drawings in my bound sketchbook and said “I really wish you’d do these on good paper.” The phrase ‘good paper’ in our house means handmade paper.

So I did.

After a while I had a lot of drawings-on-good-paper. Then Judy said “I wish you’d show these to Amy.” Amy is the gallery owner of Caplan Art Designs.

So I did.

And now Amy has been selling my dog drawings almost as fast as I can make them! I love being this busy! To make my drawings I use fountain pens and brush-and-ink. Occasionally I’ll use a very sharp pointed pen-nib and the ink – for very fine lines. I use that when a dog has lots of whiskers.

Then Judy said “I wish you’d post some of these regularly on your blog.”

On Oct 1st I gave a short talk during my fine art opening at the Daily In The Pearl arranged by Caplan Art Designs. Since I’d recently written a blog post titled “on writing and giving speeches” I thought it only fair to share with you the text of my speech along with photos. This is a rough approximation of what I said as I can’t re-create the ad-libs and audience participation – it was a fun lively evening! Anyway here goes:

Speech given Oct 1st 2016 by Sue Clancy

Thank you for coming!

I create mixed media handmade paper collage. I start off with white handmade paper and I give that paper color and pattern using a variety of art techniques; I dye the paper, I stencil it, I print on it, I marble it and use a variety of other methods. This is the “mixed media” aspect of my work.

Here are a few scraps of papers I’ve done so you can handle them, along with a postcard containing photos of me in action.

Paper samples Sue Clancy handed out during her speech; the paper on the far left is an example of the white paper she starts out with – the other 3 are examples of color/pattern she’s given the white paper

Postcard Sue made, and handed out during her speech, that shows photos of her giving paper color and pattern.

Once the papers are dry I take an X-acto knife and cut shapes out of them. Then I take the cut-paper-shapes and glue them together to make my art images. There are layers of paper glued on top of other papers. Yes, tweezers are involved.

In “The Read Hat” I cut the chihuahua’s head, 4 paws and tail out of a medium brown paper – then other smaller shapes of darker/lighter brown papers were cut to make his face. The clothes the dog wears was cut out of a green dotted paper, the books out of yellow papers – and so forth – until the image was finished.

My ideas and the pattern designs within them come from my life. Take “The Read Hat” as an example again; 5 different life experiences went into this concept.

I saw some wet, weathered flyers stapled on some telephone poles during a walk on Hawthorne Street in Portland Or. the pattern of letters overlaying each other transparently made me think about the clarity and legibility of information. (This inspired the background of this artwork.)

I met a Chihuahua who has the habit of collecting most things found at floor level onto his dog bed. Yet he still showed a preference for some things over others. So I began thinking about how I have to select which information in the world to spend time trying to understand since it is impossible to “collect all” the available information.(This inspired my choice of a Chihuahua character)

On a trip to the Oregon Coast I drove through Oregon wine country. The hills rise and fall so in several places I had an almost aerial view of the Oregon vineyards. (That inspired the green dotted pattern the Chihuahua is wearing.)

The “aerial view” of an Oregon vineyard reminded me of my favorite self-indulgence; I like to put on my pj’s early of an evening, have a glass of wine and read a book for an hour or so before bed. (This is why the character is wearing pj’s and not some other sort of outfit)

When I indulge myself this way I often take off my hearing-aids so as to completely relax and focus on what I’m reading. My deafness made me think of how important language is as a framework for understanding the world. Language is a container, a hat, that holds knowledge.

This is generally how I work: pattern designs become symbols in a visual story. When I do special commissions I use this visual story method too – only instead of my life experiences inspiring the pattern designs and story symbols it’s your life experiences that do that.

The titles I give my artworks, the “blurbs” and statements I write about them – or about my exhibits – are clues to my personal thoughts. But my use of pattern design symbolically and my use of the Animals in Art genre (it’s a classic genre of fine art like ‘still life’ or ‘landscape painting’) takes my work beyond the personal and into the mythological story or fable.

So this summer when a San Francisco company contacted me about licensing my designs for use as scarves, bags and other apparel I saw a chance to extend my ‘pattern designs as symbols’ concept into the real world. You can see my full apparel collection here: http://www.shopvida.com/collections/sue-clancy

Using the same pattern design in multiple symbolic ways – in different fine artworks, in art apparel and in artist books – is my way of thinking about aspects of nature, culture and other things in contemporary life. Thank you!

I’ve been busy working on the last fine art piece I’ll be able to finish in time for my October 2016 exhibit at Caplan Art Designs (see the events page at www.caplanartdesigns.com). Recently I was taking out the trash and it seemed the stars were larger than usual. That inspired a pattern design – Youtube video of me making a star pattern paper is here: https://youtu.be/cAx88mwARqo

Now I’ve glued the paper that I made in the video as the background within my artwork-in-progress and in this photo I’m gluing on more paper ….

Sue Clancy working on a new fine art piece (handmade paper collage) that uses the star stencil paper made in this video: https://youtu.be/cAx88mwARqo

Practicing my video techniques again in prep for filming my pop-up book “A Fish Story” (see more about that elsewhere on my blog)… this time I’m practicing video with a rabbit. Even had to “trim” my original video. But don’t worry, no actual bunnies were harmed in the production of this artist book or the film of it.

I went to the grocery store the other day and look what I found: Paper pattern ideas!

fruit found at the grocery store that inspired Sue Clancy’s new handmade paper pattern ideas

Then I designed and cut stencils so I could make a pattern on my freshly dyed handmade paper (in prep for some new fine art).

Sue Clancy’s work table full of tools for cutting stencils and the stencils she cut. Oh, and her cup of coffee.

And here I am using the stencils to make the patterns. If it looks like I’m having fun it’s because I am! And yes, a sharp eyed reader will eventually spot these papers in some new fine art of mine one of these days.

Sue Clancy in the process of stenciling patterns on handmade hand dyed papers

Here I’m adding a stenciled pattern to some hand dyed, handmade paper destined to be a part of some new fine art for upcoming art exhibits that Caplan Art Designs http://www.caplanartdesigns.com has me scheduled for in June and July and October of this year! I love having lots of art projects!

Since I make handmade papers that I cut up into shapes and use to make my fine art collages it means I’ve got lots of very-special paper scraps about. I don’t want to just throw them away – so I make book covers out of the “special scrap bits” and Judy sews them into little books. Then, under the banner “This Artist Studio” we ship batches of books to Art-O-Mat in North Carolina. The folks at Art-O-Mat put our books in old cigarette vending machines in various locations, people walk up, put in their change/tokens, pull a lever and ker-plunk! Out pops a one-of-a-kind hand sewn book (or etc.). Well, today we got a note from the head honcho’s at Art-O-Mat saying that their vendors have been specifically requesting our little books…. We’re going to have to really get busy and make scads more!!! Wahoo!!!

hand sewn books with handmade paper covers being put into a box for “vending” via ArtoMat.